Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/52321
organizations such as the Federa- tion of M¯aori Authorities (FOMA) and the Pacific Islands Polynesian Education Foundation. But we also work to retain indigenous students with more in- depth initiatives: n Mentoring. First- and second- year M¯aori and Pacific students enrolled in the business school can use the He Tu¯akana tuto- rial and mentoring program to participate in tutorials, labs, and workshops that help them learn core business subjects. n Online resources. The He Tu¯akana "Navigating Futures" handbook, available on the univer- sity Web site, not only introduces future students to people and pro- grams at the business school, it has pages dedicated to successful M¯aori alumni who describe how their heri- tage and their academic studies have contributed to their success. (It can be found at ebooks.business.auckland. ac.nz/tuakana-profiles-2010/.) n Annual business awards. The Aotearoa New Zealand M¯aori Busi- ness Leaders Awards, inaugurated in 2004, provide tangible proof that students with M¯aori heritage can lead successful international lives that model the way for oth- ers. Among the honors given out is the Outstanding M¯aori Business Leaders Award, which recognizes an individual who has made a sig- nificant contribution to business enterprise. This particular award is judged on several criteria: sus- tainability, peer approval, and the degree to which it illustrates specific qualities of M¯aori tribal leaders, or rangatira. These include knowledge, mediation, courage, strategy, con- cern for the people, knowledge of technology, and wisdom. Research centers. Indigenous scholarship is under way at the Mira Szászy Research Centre for M¯aori and Pacific Economic Development, named after the first M¯aori woman to graduate with a degree from the University of Auckland; and the Ng¯a Pae O Te M¯aramatanga-M¯aori Centre of Research Excellence, which is housed at the university and funded by the New Zealand government. In fact, research done by the school and other organizations is leading to a deeper understanding of tribal enterprise and what that enterprise means to the economy of New Zealand. According to FOMA, some 60 percent of tribal assets are export-oriented. This is no surprise, because M¯aori have been exporting and importing products since the early 1800s. Older recorded histories show that ancestral Austronesian cultures— which were based in Taiwan and southeast Asia and ultimately set- tled the Pacific islands—have been trading for close to 5,000 years. A knowledge of this history has led New Zealand to re-establish n relations with many participants in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Coop- eration (APEC). New Zealand's recent Free Trade agreements— signed with 22 ASEAN and APEC countries—contain specific refer- ences to M¯aori and have the full support of M¯aori enterprise. As business school researchers explore the rich M¯aori history, they are creating new business knowledge based on non-Western models. For instance, indigenous business and economic cycles are expressed in four types of well- being. Spiritual well-being means that spirit precedes material worlds; environmental well-being means that Mother Earth nurtures the human and natural worlds; tribal and family well-being means that kinship and extended families matter in business transactions; and economic well-being means that the material world is part of a matrix of relationships with the spirit world, the cosmos and natu- ral world, and humanity. This emergent indigenous phi- losophy of business and economics aligns with notions of spiritual cap- ital, environmental capital, social- cultural capital, and financial and economic capitals. At the Univer- sity of Auckland Business School, we know that this indigenous for- mula for success is also part of the overall equation for a richer curric- ulum for our school and a stronger economy for New Zealand. Manuka Henare is associate dean of M¯aori & Pacific Development and direc- tor of the Mira Szászy Research Centre at the University of Auckland Business School in New Zealand. BizEd January/February 2012 27